Obama vows to lead US from dire ‘day of reckoning’

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama promised a nation shuddering in economic crisis Tuesday night that he would lead it from a dire “day of reckoning” to a brighter future, summoning politicians and public alike to shoulder responsibility for hard choices and shared sacrifice. “The time to take charge of our future is here,” Obama declared, delivering his first address to a joint session of Congress.

21 Responses

I still dont understand why we are continuing this “War on Terror”. Where is the logic? How can the US continue to spend trillions of dollars on a war that has no tangible victory in sight, yet our economy is in the toilet with yesterdays Taco Bell?

Hopefully this economic stimulus package will get us back on track. I do feel is a step in the right direction towards recovering from our current situation.

How can this man (yes, folks, contrary to popular opinion he IS just a man, not the Messiah) keep a straight face and say that his multiple packages contain NO EARMARKS!!! Say what???
Billions of dollars to Hollywood producers for film??? Money for direct transportation to Las Vegas? What??? There are no roads leading there now?? Monies to contain/protect (whatever) some mice in Nancy Pelosi’s district (yeah, we really, really need that), and on and on and on. Makes me sick.
And to all you “blame Bush” crowd, lots of mistakes were made for sure, but you don’t justify bad behavior with MORE bad behavior. I’m still waiting for the “change we can believe in”.

I think even the Repulicans were impressed with his speech. People wanted specifics, but you can talk for over an hour on one issue and it’s not realistic to think he would do that. Besides, until it’s in writing, no one is going to comment effectively. I thought the response from Lindel was poor. His delivery was terrible and people thought he acted like Mr. Rogers. I found it ironic that he chose the volcano monitoring as a example of poor spending, when his state lost billions to a natural disaster and took billions in aid. Preventing loss from natural disasters makes economic sense; however, whether it is stimulus or not depends on where your binoculars are.

I am fascinated as to whether the anti-war movement so behind Barack Obama picked up on the wee notion unfurled last night that our budget will be completely accounted for over the next ten years including all military expenses and OH BY THE WAY we are probably going to be at war in Afghanistan and Pakistan during those ten years.

Barack Obams’s rousing speech gives validity and confirmation
that those of us who backed him when everyone else was touting
Hillary Clinton, absolutely DID make the right choice in this
election. John McCain was destined to be a BORE and Clinton
was all hype and no substance. The Obama family is giving
America great TV and magazine imaging and who could ask for
anything better right now ?? Decisive, authoritative, dignified,
and all action and with any other election choice, this would
have never been possible.

Keep it real,why do we fight a “war on terror”,the logic is so we don’t get killed,if you let terror expand you end up with anarchy.It would be great if we could cut the deficit and do all the projects(well some) that were proposed,but as someone once said thats “fuzzy math”.I know you can go over the issues in the spending bill line by line ,but it sure would have been nice if someone could have read it before they passed it,to much of a timeshare sell tactic to me.

My message to Congress and President Obama. Please no more wars!!!! This country of ours is special and can be an example to others of just what it means to live in a free county with opportunities galore. Please use our resources in humanitarian ways – Peace Corps, Doctors Without Borders, aid to other who suffer from natural disasters. Use our assets in positive ways. Stop trying to make others give up their way of life. Just set an example and if they want to follow, it is up to them. Bring back our troops from Germany, Japan and wherever we are not not needed. Stop butting into everyone else’s affairs. Stop spending our assets on wars and places we are not wanted. Respect others who want a different way of life. Yes, we have to protect ourselves, but do it here.

I agree Rita,we should start here,perhaps if we got rid of the illegal immagrants who are sucking up tax dollars and now kidnapping americans (see Phoenix),stopped butting into other countries affairs(see Somalia humanitarian aid which caused the death of our troops)and told china to quit lending us money ,we would indeed be better off!!

Obama is proving to be a world class idiot. This buffoon actually believes we can tax and spend ourselves into prosperity? This cap-and-trade idiocy is obviously plagiarized from Algore and the other global warming morons.

When US citizens take the jobs that illegal immigrants do, the Dow will be below 1,000. Face it, no immigrants, no produce, wool and housekeeping in California. You may argue that most aren’t “illegal” but I doubt most don’t know the difference. I agree that border towns have a tough time and added expense, but just ask any farmer in NY State who uses them if they can survive without them. That was why there was such a big uproar when the Bush administration tried to limit how long they could work. As for the comment by # 11. If this graduate from Harvard Law School is an idiot and buffoon, what does that say about our education system? Do us a favor, give back the tax break he is about to give you along with anything else that would come your way. Show you are a true rebel and display self sacrifice. Be an example for all of us.

Fred,Illegals are also doing trades like sheetrocking and taping,masonary and the like which have driven down wages in the trades for quite some time now,and I’ve talked to many farmers who survive quite well without immigrants,its the mass producing farms (which also recieve subsidies)using “migrant labor”
As I’ve stated before it may be those Harvard and Yale graduates that are the problem,chairman of Goldman Sachs,Ge,Gm,The Bushes,Hank Paulsen,most of Obamas cabinet, and countless others of these failing companies are all graduates,coincidence,or maybe their teaching of global economics by proffs who never worked in buisiness is part of the problem.
Unfortunetly,many of us won’t be getting a refund check,thanks for the reward of hard work,that stated don’t let me stop you from paying more,which has always been an option that has never been exercised by the elite rich who want everyone in the middle class to pay for social programs.

I can’t believe the staggering ignorance of the Obama supporters! A tax cut for 95% of us? Yeah right, a whopping $13.00 a week. That’s really going to stimulate the economy. And if you believe that he is going to pay for his Stimulus and new budget by just taxing the wealthy, you better run the #’s and get your head right. Economist’s said that even if you took “EVERY CENT” from the 250,000 to 500,000 crowd you would barely pay HALF of the expenditures. And how many of you out there actually got hired by a poor person? I know there is greed out there but who do you think creates jobs in America, people on welfare? All OF US are going to pay more and Obama is slick, he said he won’t raise taxes on the middle class. He’s just going to let Bush’s tax cuts expire and anyone making 50-60K a year is going to pay $1800-2000.00 more a year. I know, I’ve researched it. Even the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) said his stimulus plan won’t work and we can’t afford it. You can’t just print money that doesn’t exist. People Wake up!

Hmm… taxing the rich? From what I witnessed this past year with the President choosing his cabinet, the rich don’t pay their taxes anyway and obviously get away with it. I had a 85.00 error on my federal return one time and I was threatened that if it wasn’t fixed that I could be facing imprisonment. The audit that was performed on my 26,000.00 yearly salary cost the government 4X that amount to pay the auditors to conduct the audit! Why should we even bother? There is no relief for the working class and won’t be. It’s not even a democrat v. Republican politics world any more, it’s rich v. the poor.

You listen to Rush right? One member of his cabinet did not pay SS tax and he admitted he mada mistake and he DID pay his taxes. Most of his cabinet probably pays more in taxes than you or I make in a year.

Most audits are computer driven and letters go out automatically there is very little cost to audit these days.

Paul,

So when bush cut taxes and still spent more money than was brought in what do you call that. That is a deficit. Yes Obama is proposing a deficit budget but he inherited this mess. Now if his plan does not work we can all blame him. But if he did nothing we will all blame him too.

Angel, you are 100% correct in your point about Bush’s spending. I was wild eyed over that and didn’t agree. Let’s just remember one thing as economists all over the world would tell you, you can’t cut taxes and INCREASE spending! It doesn’t work no matter who is in the White House.As far as Obama is concerned Angel, if you think Bush spent a lot, you haven’t seen anything yet. And he will tax you and I more and we will end up with less.One last thing , Congress had a huge part in this fiscal mess and if my memory serves me right the Dems. have had a majority in it since 2004. So like a lot of other people who want to blame Bush for it all, it is a lot bigger than ONE man.

Cutting taxes and increasing spending does work ,because ;People have more to spend,they buy more durable goods,which increases productivity,which leads to manufacting making more goods ,which leads to more people hired and more people paying into the system,so instead of 5 people paying$10,000 you now have 8 people paying say $8000,so the govt is gettting $14000 more.Now when you increase taxes people have less money to spend,and lets say they go down to 5 people again,if they have a short term blip,rather than hire they will ask those 5 people to work overtime;however,most likely they wont want to for fear of moving into a higher tax bracket,which you are seeing now(see NEWSWEEK)and has happened every time taxes are raised,this new budget and these new programs offer no incentive to work hard to achieve more.

one member of Obama’s cabinet didn’t pay his taxes, but then paid them with interest just before being confirmed. However, a whole slew of Pres. Obama’s nominees (all democrats) had similar tax evasion problems (yes I called it tax evasion, because quite frankly, republican or democrat, if they hadn’t been nominated, I know they wouldn’t have ever disclosed or paid the outstanding tax that they new was payable). The majority of the nominees except the one confirmed cabinet member withdrew from their nominations after the exposure of their tax problems.